Chapter 2. Watermarks
(Highlights in the history of Oakland's Waterfront)

There are few texts which describe the history of
Oakland's Waterfront comprehensively. This may be because the Waterfront
itself is so varied.

As the terminus of the transcontinental railway,
Oakland gained the character of a mixing pot of people, goods and ideas.
For many, Oakland was where they first set foot in California. The
railroads also gave impetus to new opportunities and a new society .
Consequently by 1930 the first major labor union open to Blacks, the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, found a home in Oakland.

Oakland thrived from the early railroads. The main
passenger depot was at Seventh and Broadway. Hotels and restaurants
sprang up along Eighth, Ninth and Washington Street to serve the
travelers. Trains continued west from Broadway along Seventh Street to
the Waterfront where in 1871 the Central Pacific opened a two-mile Long
Wharf where passengers and freight made connections to San Francisco.

The harbor shaped Oakland in different ways. Early
industries located ne'4f the docks for convenience. While San Francisco
established itself early as a commercial center, the actual goods passed
through or were manufactured in Oakland. Oakland became a hub of
shipping, not only for California, but for the western United States.
With all types of cargo passing through Oakland, it was not long before
factories and warehouses multiplied here.

As ferry travel developed, West Oakland emerged. By
1877, ferries had made more than four million crossings in the East Bay.
West Oakland thrived as the center of activity and the heart of industry
and entertainment.

Later, the airport made Oakland emerge in an
entirely different way, as the birthplace of transcontinental and
trans-Pacific air travel. Doolittle, Earhart and other early adventurers
came to Oakland to make their mark.

As the years have passed, the technology of human
and cargo travel has changed. The impact of change has been profoundly
felt in Oakland. The disappearance of the ferries and the rise in
containerized cargo have combined to create the most dramatic effect in
West Oakland. As industries have lost the reed to locate on the
shoreline, manufacturing jobs have migrated from the Waterfront. As
package express services have risen, Oakland Airport has captured new
opportunities.

As a ground/sea/air transportation center, Oakland
is always at thc center of technological and social change. From history
we learn the special place our city holds in the social and economic
dynamics of our nation. History also teaches us the importance of
recognizing the changing opportunities of Waterfront cities and the
continual need to anticipate and capture these opportunities.

The following is a brief outline of some of the key
points of change in the history of Oakland . s Waterfront.

<Oakland's seaport develops amid
the struggle for its control>

1851 First regular commercial ferry service
established between Oakland and San Francisco.

1854 Oakland is incorporated and Horace W.
Carpentier is elected as the first mayor. Thirteen days later, Mayor
Carpentier obtains exclusive use of the Waterfront for a period of
thirty years.

1855 In reaction to Carpentier's land grab,
he is expelled from office. A lengthy court battle ensues over ownership
of the Waterfront.

1868 The possibility that Oakland might be
selected as the western terminus for the transcontinental railroad
brings the dispute with Carpentier to a head. Carpentier agrees to deed
his rights to the Oakland Waterfront Company. It is later discovered
that Carpentier is President of the Oakland Waterfront Company!

<Courts place the tidelands in
public ownership>

1907 The Courts finally determine that the
City of Oakland owns the Waterfront, ending a fifty-five year fight with
Carpentier and the Central Railroad.

1926 City voters enact a charter amendment
transferring administration of publicly owned tidelands to the Port of
Oakland, a new semi-autonomous agency governed by the Board of Port
Commissioners.

1927 The first Board of Port Commissioners
takes office.

<Oakland Municipal Airport's
historic beginning>

1930 Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith wings into
Oakland Municipal Airport from the east, becoming the first person to
circumnavigate the world in an airplane.

1937 (May 20) Amelia Earhart takes off from
Oakland Municipal Airport for her fateful attempt to circumnavigate the
world.

<The rise and fall of the
Waterfront as a passenger transportation hub>

1931 Francis Marion ("Borax") Smith dies.
Possessing a $30 million fortune from twenty mule team borax, he had
settled in Oakland in the early 1900s and began buying streetcar lines.
He called his system the Key Route. These transit lines converged at the
Waterfront, where a major ferry system linked the East Bay and San
Francisco. The Key System continued in service throughout the East Bay
until it was absorbed into the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District in
) 960.

1933 (July 9) Thousands gather at the base of
Borax Smith's old Key Route mole to watch a dynamite blast, triggered
telegraphically from the White House by President Franklin D. Roosevelt,
break ground for the $75 million Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge.

1936 The Oakland Bay Bridge opens to traffic.
46, 120 vehicles cross the bridge on the first day paying the 65 cent
toll. (Incidentally, passage to South America from Oakland aboard a
McCormick Lines passenger vessel cost $3.50 per day).

By 1939 Key System trains had begun regular
train service across the Bay Bridge, leading to demise of the Key Route
and Southern Pacific ferries and the end of passenger travel through the
West Oakland Waterfront

<1936- 1950 Waterfront emerges as
a military supply depot>

1936 The U.S. Navy announces plans to
construct a $12 million, 390 acre Naval Supply Depot on Oakland's
northwestern Waterfront to support ships of its Pacific Fleet.

1941 The U.S. War Department condemns 74
acres for an Army Depot.

By 1950 due to the Korean Conflict, the
Oakland Army Base has become the busiest maritime facility on the
Pacific Coast.

<The rise and fall of the Oakland
Municipal Airport>

1937 United Airlines introduces Douglas
DC-3's in its Oakland-New York service.

By 1941 United Airlines' Oakland-New York
route boasted the heaviest ton-per-mile traffic volume in the world.

1943 Oakland Municipal Airport has become the
marshaling point for all planes bound for the Pacific war effort.
Civilian flights cease and Oakland's commercial flights are diverted to
San Francisco for the duration of World War II.

1947 Oakland Municipal Airport is returned to
Port control by the War Assets Administration. Civilian flights return
to the Oakland Municipal Airport, but it fails to recover its Pre-War
dominance. The Port launches a Fly Oakland campaign to discourage the
wartime practice by airlines of transporting Bay Area passengers to San
Francisco Airport.

<Post- War search for a new role
for the Waterfront>

1949 Oakland's first freeway, a new 'high
speed', six lane artery called the Eastshore Freeway, opens to traffic
from Oak Street to 23rd Avenue.

1951 Jack London Square is officially
dedicated.

1958 Oakland's first television station, KTVU
Channel 2, begins broadcasting and eventually locates in a new studio at
the foot of Washington Street.

1961 Construction of a convention hall
(Goodman Hall) begins in Jack London Square along with the start of an
eighty-nine berth marina.

1961 The Port Commission files a formal
complaint with the CAB against eight airlines, claiming that they have
accorded Oakland" inadequate and unjustly discriminatory service". The
complaint is provoked by a fifty-six percent drop in scheduled
departures between 1955 and 1961, leaving Oakland with less than four
percent of all Bay Area air passenger traffic. Oakland eventually won
this lawsuit, forming the basis for airline deregulation.

1962 The Port plays a key role in formation
of the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum. The Port swaps 157 acres at the head of
San Leandro Bay to the East Bay Regional Park District in exchange for
105 acres of park land across the freeway, which the Port in turn
donates to the City as the site for the planned Oakland-Alameda County
Coliseum sports complex.

1966 Galbraith Golf Course opens on 169 acres
south of the approach to Oakland International Airport.

1967 Radio station KNEW goes on the air from
the Port of Oakland building.

1977 Dredging begins for four million dollars
in improvements at Embarcadero Cove, where the Port will develop a 400
berth marina with state funding support.

<Oakland leaps ahead in
containerized shipping technology>

1962 S.S. Elizabethport, the world's largest
freighter, arrives at the Port of Oakland's Outer Harbor Terminal to
inaugurate inter-coastal container ship operations by Sea-Land Service,
Inc. The Port has spent $600,000 to upgrade Berths 8 and 9 to
accommodate the line's revolutionary operations. Through the use of
sealed trailers the shipper is able to load and unload a vessel in
one-sixth the time of conventional ships. This reduces handling costs
from some $24 per ton to $4 per ton.

1965 The Port Commission approves a
partnership with the newly established Bay Area Rapid Transit District,
leading to construction of the Outer and Middle Harbors. In return for
an easement to route the BART rube along Seventh Street, (through the
old ferry mole which the Port had inherited from Southern Pacific
Railroad), BART will demolish the deteriorated Southern Pacific
facilities. In addition, as part of the agreement, 140 acres of the
adjoining shallow portion of the bay are diked and filled to create land
for the Middle Harbor Terminal. The fill material consists of rock, sand
and gravel which BART excavates while constructing subways in downtown
Oakland and Berkeley.

1965 Sea-Land signs a twenty-year agreement
with the Port for use of a 26 acre, two berth terminal to be built by
the Port in the Outer Harbor.

1968 Japan's six major steamship companies
locate their U.S. container operations at the Port of Oakland. By this
time the Port of Oakland had become the West Coast's largest container
facility and the second largest container port in the United States,
barely surpassed by the Port of New York. Oakland's annual container
tonnage outpaces Rotterdam's.

1969 The Port inaugurates container service
between Oakland and Europe. Oakland now handles the second largest
volume of containers among ports of the world, with annual container
traffic exceeding three million tons.

1974 American President Lines signs an
agreement to shift i~ container operations from San Francisco to
Oakland.

1975 The 85-acre Middle Harbor Terminal, a
$35 million project, is now fully occupied.

1977 A two berth, 32-acre Outer Harbor
facility is completed and is occupied by a Japanese four-line
consortium, whose ships now carry forty percent of all U.S. West
Coast-Japan container trade. By 1978, cargo volume reaches ten million
tons.

<Expansion of the Airport Complex>

1965 Following five months of negotiations
with a major Boston development firm, the Port decides not to sell the
700-acre Port Industrial Park (now the Airport Business Park). Studies
suggest the Port can realize almost $2 million more over the coming
decade by developing the property itself. Indeed, in fiscal 1965, Port
rental facilities earned more than 2 1/2 times as much as marine
terminals offsetting an $815,315 loss from airport operations.

1980 Construction begins on a new $1.3
mil1ion Executive Terminal at Oakland International Airport's North
Field.

<The Waterfront confronts a
changing world>

Recovering Oakland's Competitive Position Among
West Coast Ports:

After seizing the initiative in containerized
maritime traffic on the West Coast, the Port of Oakland has slipped
to third place, after Los Angeles/Long Beach and Seattle/Tacoma,
among West Coast ports.

The Port has confronted this challenge by
seeking to improve its sea-rail/truck linkages on the shore and by
deepening the harbor to accommodate larger ships. In 1986 Congress
authorized a $74 million dredging project, and the initial stage of
dredging began in September 1992.

Resurgence of Airport Operations:

In 1985, the Lionel J. Wilson Terminal opens at
the Oakland International Airport, enabling it to achieve passenger
volumes which are second in the Bay Area only to San Francisco
International Airport.

"Spin-off' employment grows with the expansion
of airline maintenance operations, air cargo distribution facilities
and traveler service industries.

Environmental concerns and conflicts with
residential developments on nearby land complicate prospects for
future airport expansion.

Rethinking the role of commercial development:

In 1989, a major office and retail expansion of
Jack London Square is completed, but nearly all of the new retail
space remains vacant three years later. Setbacks at Jack London
Square and continued difficulties at Jack London Village make the
Port wary of further commercial projects.

In 1992, the Port and Amtrak discuss
construction of a long-haul passenger station at Jack London Square
and the regional transportation agency considers increasing ferry
service at Jack London Square. Both potential developments offer the
prospect of increasing pedestrian traffic at Jack London Square.

In 1990 - 1992, the Port, Oakland Coliseum and
City of Oakland discuss the potential use of the Port-owned land
across Highway 880 from the Coliseum. Consideration is given to
using the land for either Coliseum parking or major retail tenants.

Response to growing environmental concerns:

In 1976, the Port of Oakland donates 135 acres
of shoreline and 495 acres of San Leandro Bay to the East Bay
Regional Park District for public recreational use.

The Port maintains some limited public access
areas and mini-parks at sixteen locations along the Waterfront.

Environmental objections delay the harbor
dredging project for more than five years. Objections to bay fill at
the airport confound runway expansions.

In 1991, the State Legislature takes the first
steps to implement a shoreline trail which will skirt the
Waterfront. The Port and City are working to implement this plan in
a manner which will increase Waterfront access without interfering
with transportation operations.